Death of a Queen
by Warfang
Summary: Don't know why that's the title. Okay, here's one of the ideas that decided to form when I am studying for my tests this week. It concerns one of my theories for season 3. Note: This is my original idea, but no original characters.
1. Chapter 1

I do not own Storm Hawks!

I have another idea of what the third season of Storm Hawks should be, and maybe one day I will write it but today is not that day!

On the positive note, I didn't kill Finn this time! (…..yet)

On with the story!

The remaining Storm Hawks gaped at the Far Side Crystal. Master Cyclonis had finally done it. She had finally discovered a relatively safe way back and was headed back to finish conquering Atmos.

Finn, Aerrow, and Junko looked at each other. Then they looked across to the opposite side of the chasm, where on a raised dais, stood Master Cyclonis, with her arms raised to the Crystal. The past five years of fighting had been kind to her. She was a beautiful woman, even screaming about how she finally had what she always wanted within her grasp.

Dark Ace stood behind her, a serene expression on his face. The Storm Hawks were waiting for a chance to get across the chasm and stop them. Any attempts to cross so far had resulted with a warning shot from the crazed Master. Finn was out of bolts, and Aerrow had lost his weapons which were now in Dark Ace's possession, strapped to his back. They watched what happened next.

Dark Ace stepped up to his Master.

"Master Cyclonis, do you remember what you told me so long before?"

She gave him a wry smile, a gleam of insanity in her eyes. "Times are changing Dark Ace."

"No."

His blade sank into her stomach. "It was that Crystals had life force in them. That one could be driven mad by them. If you do this, then you destroy the very objective that you wish to win. You asked me to kill you before you destroyed your own dreams."

Master Cyclonis studied his face. She raised her right hand, his sword having sunk into her middle, and stroked the side of his face.

"That I did, Dark Ace. That I did."

Dark Ace smiled into her touch, nuzzling her hand.

"I don't want you to go alone, Master."

"Then come with me."

Dark Ace removed his blade as he gently sank down to give Master Cyclonis comfort in her last moments. Then he raised the blade between them and slit his own throat. The warm and steady gush of blood from the slight cut showed that a major artery was nicked, and he had seconds to live.

Cyclonis helped him put the blade aside.

The Crystal destroyed the passage above them, rubble falling around them.

* * *

Once the aftershocks faded away, Junko built a shaky bridge out of the rubble for Aerrow and Finn to cross over to see if Master Cyclonis and Dark Ace were dead.

They lay together in a pool of blood; she sprayed with some, and smears showing where Dark Ace had attempted to wipe them from her face.

Finn would have vomited once upon a time at seeing such. Now, five years, and losing Piper, Radarr, and Stork, he turned his eyes to the sky and composed himself.

"Think they'll be happy once they get to wherever they're going?"

Aerrow looked at him. "I don't know. What I do know is that Atmos is safe, and we have no way to return to Atmos."

"I vote for moving forward. After we bury them."

Aerrow nodded. "I wouldn't follow any other course."

* * *

The grave is shallow; after all, even Junko can't dig through solid rock for a proper six feet, so they dig down two feet and then build up, around the bodies.

Dark Ace and Master Cyclonis are laid side by side in the same grave. There's no custom to dictate otherwise, and they left this world together.

Dark Ace has his blade laid over him, his hands wrapped around the hilt, his serene smile to Master Cyclonis turned heavenward. Master Cyclonis also has a smile, as though a heavy burden is no longer required. Her insanity seemed to have abandoned her, and Finn thanks the powers that be that his insanity was caused by the Black Gorge.

They seal the tomb, and Aerrow uses the dying Crystal energy from his daggers to inscribe a few simple words.

_Dark Ace and Master Cyclonis_

_Loyal Traitor and the Cyclonian Queen_

The remaining Storm Hawks stand back. There are no words to say. Junko crosses over, and then holds the rubble steady while Finn and then Aerrow cross over.

They head back to the Condor. There's still eighty percent of the Far Side that needs to be mapped, any other route to Atmos discovered, and there are enough wild Crystals to support the ability to do so.

There's also the chance that the other Storm Hawks are only missing, but the chances that they are dead rises with each passing day. The sky is no longer the only element with the dangerous creatures inhabiting it, and Stork concluded early on that the Black Gorge must somehow be connected to the Far Side, at least once upon a time.

Back when Stork could mount a defense against whatever ailed them.

The remaining Storm Hawks climb aboard the Condor, parked by Finn on a stabilized piece of outcropping. There's nothing waiting for them inside, but they still run the customary electric shock to make sure that nothing really is waiting for them.

Finn carefully drives the Condor out to a safe zone, inhabitable by them, but nothing that's hungry comes looking in this area.

How do they move forward? Piper was the one that made maps. Finn's driving is atrocious, but it keeps them afloat. He spends days figuring out why Stork connected wires in a jumbled mess, and then hours reconstructing the only working way to open the hangar.

Radarr is missed the most. Before Stork had clued in, the furry friend was able to scent danger miles away. His instant dislike or trust of flora and creatures told them what was safe to eat. Or what would eat them.

And Aerrow is still half-convinced that if he turns around, and offers his shoulder to perch on, Radarr will be there to jump on it.

The Condor scratches against a point that Finn swore he had gone above, and he gently reverses the direction, gets more lift, and tries again. Finn keeps the swearing to himself. He shouldn't cuss out the Condor; the poor ship misses her old Pilot. He pats the steering wheel to show that he misses Stork too.

It's so different and so similar to flying and shooting at the same time, using his sharp eyes to gauge the distance and appreciate the gap between his skills and Storks'. There was a reason the Merb was the Carrier Pilot.

Junko rarely cooks, and most of the edible food found here is to be eaten as is. He wishes Piper was around. She may not know how to cook, but her sand cakes were always a yummy treat. She always had a plan. But right now, the only plan is to go forward.

So which direction is forward?

* * *

Piper, Stork, and Radarr read the inscription on the tomb. Crossing over had been no problem; the Crystals here had much power, and were farther advanced, having had longer to grow. Piper even suspects some of having secondary powers that don't need activation and are always on. Such as how some Crystals don't have one primary function, and rather have multiple uses.

Piper nods to Stork, and they begin to remove the rubble.

Once the engraving is laid to the side, they clear away the top and open up the sealed dome around the Cyclonians.

Master Cyclonis opens her eyes first.

"I trust the performance went well enough?"

Piper nods her head, fighting the urge to bend onto her knee and incline her head.

Dark Ace groans and sits up, using his arms to prop himself up. "I can take off the Cloaking Crystal now?"

Cyclonis nods to him. Dark Ace reaches under his shirt, and yanks the Crystal off. His thirty year old appearance is replaced by a fifteen year old Dark Ace.

"I was right! The Binding with the Far Side Crystal back at the battle made you immortal!" Piper grins at them. "Or, as near immortal, so long as the Crystal energy remains with you."

Master Cyclonis nods at Piper's enthusiasm, as she rubs off her own make-up. Her appearance as a young woman fades away, and she looks the same as the day she faked Dark Ace's death.

He wasn't the only one infected with Far Side Crystal energy.

Stork rolls his eyes, and holds out his hand. Dark Ace takes it and helps himself up. Master Cyclonis floats out of the grave.

"But Piper, we know that our life forces are the spark that ignites the Crystals by invoking it. For so long as we live, the energy will never run out. We'd have to be killed in a very horrible fashion to even consider death." Master Cyclonis says this in an offhand way as she mends the hole in her shirt. She just waved her hand, and the delicate procedure of knitting the cloth together goes underway.

The sewing kit is left with their Skimmers, and she is not walking around in holy garments.

Piper shrugs. "I'm just glad that your crazy gamble didn't get you killed."

Dark Ace walked around, getting use to being fifteen again. Actually, he was getting used to being trapped as fifteen for the rest of his immortal life. The Far Side Crystal had destroyed his old body, and thanks to Piper stumbling on them, his body had stopped aging as he was distracted to help Master Cyclonis fight off Piper without hurting her.

The stupid specialist had walked around the corner and irritated an entire nest of Poisoned Tooth Sloths, much like their cousins in the Black Gorge. But that was another story.

And it was a one-time deal to regulate the energy to regain his old form. Now he was somewhere between betraying the Storm Hawks and deciding to grow out his side burns when he got older.

Radarr churred at them. He climbed up Master Cyclonis' back and pointed to the sky, indicating the leaving Condor.

"Oh, don't worry Radarr, we'll save them." Master Cyclonis scratched under his chin. "We'll save them."

Stork rolled his eyes. "We're doomed."

* * *

A/N: I have a test Wednesday, homework due tomorrow that I haven't started, and a test Friday, and I'm sitting here writing this when I have no internet connection.

But now that I am de-stressed and only have to worry about the paper and test on Friday, I decided to polish this up and post it.

This may or may not be a continuation of Dark Ace is dead (not!) and it may or may not continue itself.

I have another idea for Season Three, where Dark Ace did not betray the Storm Hawks, but they were recruited by the Cyclonians to go save the Far Side, and now Dark Ace is following them with the new Storm Hawks, who don't have a clue what's going on, until they meet Aerrow's dad, who's sorry for leaving Dark Ace behind.

Is that what my mind comes up with when I'm tired?

Anyway, thanks for reading! And yeah, don't hold breaths on updates, but thanks to all of you who have reviewed Lights, Camera, Hiccup! I keep checking my email and thinking 'I should write, but I have a test'.

Glances at above work. Um…..I was stressed and couldn't study when I wrote this, and figured I should post something so you'd know I'm still alive.


	2. Chapter 2

I do not own Storm Hawks! ….and I just had an idea that I wanted to try out. This is really weird, but then again, I said that I had another idea for season three, and this fanfic suddenly turned into an AU because I remembered something. Please don't kill me for the change in pace.

Blame my friends who got me watching Yu-Gi-Oh! It influenced my writing (thankfully, the infection is limited to this fanfic).

On with the story!

A pneumatic hiss is heard, and then the walls open up. A petit woman with a fierce scowl stumbles out, pulling off clothes that hugged her body. She throws a robe over and strides to the window.

The doctors on the other side scramble to open up the room. She stalks out and waits for the light to flicker to red before she rounds on a nurse. The nurse surrenders a glass of water and watches Lark Gale Storm down the contents.

Lark wipes her hand over her mouth. "What happens in the game system now that we've eliminated the NPCs?"

Damn the hacker that had put her game into the fritz. Two back up games on the market and good press were the only reasons her company hadn't gone under. Dammit! Atmos: The Sky Knights was supposed to be her greatest game of the year and establish her company as a leading Gaming Immerse and Design producer.

"Well, now that they are enclosed in a section of data we can manipulate, control, and observe, they are safer than they were before, ma'am." The doctor goes back to the script on the screen and watches the code that is running for the game on the screen. He has four more hours before an overlap with another doctor for an hour, and then he can sleep.

Dark Ace walked out of the side room behind them, a separate chamber that had finally isolated and deleted the virulent code and then assimilated back into the game. His character was frozen as a fifteen year old boy now, due to a glitch that wouldn't be resolved under the current state of affairs, and an actual deletion of a character was not possible in this version.

Well, he wasn't known as Dark Ace in reality. He had picked the name as a kind of inside joke among the friends. His given name was actually Jay Bleu. He was a dark brunet of a man, with a dry wit and a lean frame. He worked under Master Cyclonis in reality and in the gaming world.

He was only slightly disconcerted by the fact that the computer based program had suddenly gotten an organic feel for growing. The AI system, Oracle, was uncorrupt. So someone had to be interfering with the gaming world- somewhere in a shadow realm that was called Far Side.

The jolt between reality and losing touch with the game had made the process delicate. Several children had not been online when the system crashed at noon exactly, three years ago. Of the three hundred people online, forty got out on their own, a default NPC taking over their character as part of a random algorithm from the virus. Two hundred and fifty were brought out and readjusted, and were still seeing therapists.

That left ten still in the game. Or willingly still going back into the game.

Master Cyclonis, played by the CEO herself, Lark Gale Storm, a young woman who lead the new gaming enterprise in the Europeans, and soon America. The Dark Ace, played by her cousin and body guard, Jay Bleu. Piper, her adopted niece, actually named Piper Flute. Stork was her boyfriend, a Goth punk that had signed in and known something was wrong from the start. He had just started when the crash happened, and was able to alert the scientists the fastest, his body still adjusting to the new game specifics.

Why his little brother chose to be a furry blue animal, they had no idea. Maybe because Robin had a touch of autism, but was still functional, and thought it would be funny to mess with them. Well, he was stuck being a furry blue animal, and what bothered them was the lack of concern he showed being stuck as a furry blue animal.

Lark brought her attention back to the game. The room was sterile white, typical of laboratories where bodies were kept and cleaned.

Hooked up to monitors and still in their suits, the players of Aerrow, Finn, and Junko were laying on the table inside the room she had left.

"They'll make it out yet. It hasn't been three years completely. We can still save them." Jay muttered to himself. He put his hand on the window pane, starring at the young men on the other side. Lark chose not to comment. She knew Jay was getting close to one of the boys, and was thinking of getting him a job here at the company, but with the crash, a lot of dreams were ruined.

She inhaled deeply.

"Let's review our progress. We've isolated them in the Shadow World- the Far Side. Tricky, I know, but this way no humanoid NPC characters with virulent code gets near them. Just the monsters, which are basic coding. Which is good, because the characters were designed to evolve with player interaction using their basic programming. Now, I have to help with a board meeting. Who wants to take watch?"

A pale, thin arm was raised. Robin gave her a glimmering look. Lark inclined her head to him, then ordered Piper and Stork to get some sleep- separately.

Piper gave the still form of her twin brother one last look, and then headed for the room on the opposite side of where they came in to sleep. Jay followed Lark out, and Stork helped himself to some water, watching the doctors and nurses scurry about them and keep their charges clean.

Two people entered the room. "I understand that while my Domowick character might not be well liked, he did make it to the Far Side before the crash and should be inside the game to watch their progress?"

A doctor scurried over to him. The burly Australian inclined his head, and then headed for the room on the right, entering into a pod and relaxing as the layout read his suit and linked him up.

He was wearing a typical body suit, an output reader that would be scanned head to toe by the pod's sensors to relate movement without the person actually moving. Tricky to believe that you can run for miles when in reality, you can't even walk. The severe woman who had entered with him walked over to Robin. She may no longer have the same purple hair, but Starling was a woman that people remembered. She glanced into a separate room. "How's Ravess- I mean, Charlotte, doing?"

Robin gave her a vacant glance, than indicated a sheet of paper. Starling walked over to it. Charlotte had been undergoing therapy to regain the use of her hands when the Crash came through. To come out of a game and realize that your dream of playing the violin was wrong….the shock had fully incapacitated her. But Charlotte did not give up. She went back into the game, and fought to stabilize the minds of those trapped inside.

Starling hoped she wasn't feeding her own addiction.

After all, getting killed meant you went to the restart menu, and it was safer to pull the players out then. When a menu game asks you to restart when your brain says you're dead helps ease the transition to reality. But then she would wake up to a world where her hands were useless. The psych report wasn't favorable, but Starling would not let her best friend suffer alone.

She went to the room that Piper had ducked into, to tell her that her half-brother Snipe- Charlie, had raised enough money to start therapy again.

Robin went back to watching the screen.

* * *

In the Far Side, Finn steered the Condor through a Sky Shark attack. Sure, he would be better on the cannons, but then who would steer? There wasn't as big a problem with landing- rather than hit the Wastelands, they would crash and burn in the dense trees, or nests of Spiny Poison Tooth anything.

Aerrow walked across the bridge, studying the crude maps he had made. Junko was in charge of the cannons, and was actually sneezing the sharks away more than he fired. Aerrow finally found what he was looking for.

"Okay, according to this, there's a line between where the Sky Sharks feed and the reach of some Flesh Eating Plant vines. Try to keep us there, and they'll fight each other and ignore us."

After losing half his team, Aerrow needed to fight smarter, not harder.

Finn glanced at the map and steered the Condor to the indicated mark. It was a much more by feel than experience. Aerrow convinced Junko to come in from the side the Sky Sharks were attacking, and keep an eye out for the vines.

The three boys had several tense moments, but then they were flying clear.

Finn whooped and jumped, steering the Condor to a crystal deposit to refuel.

* * *

In reality, the heart rates of all three boys increased. Domowick clued the doctors in about the observed battle, and that the Condor was the only data damaged. The doctors raced about, marking the charts and telling the nurses that drugs were not needed this time.

A black haired Italian boy with the word Junko taped over his bed twitched some, then stilled. He was muscular, but not overly so. His skin was a deathly white, after having no sun or surf for the months he had been stricken with his mind in the game. His nickname was Crow.

The middle bed was given to Piper's twin. Both of them were olive skinned with black curly hair. He had green eyes after a surgery from an accident, but she had retained the deep blue of her mother. His name was unknown, Piper having always called him brother in her native tongue and both of their parents being dead.

On the bed closest to the window where the doctors observing and communicating to the others inside could keep a close on him, was Finn. He was actually a visiting prince who wanted to hang out with his friends before he got married the next month, and now the whole Kingdom treated him like he was dead and had moved on.

They said good-bye to the best ruler that they had in four hundred years because he wanted to goof off in a game. Lark personally thought it was petty to ruin an entire country for abandoning its own Prince, but the elements were ravaging the country of Vapos enough, that she decided hitting their economy wasn't necessary.

Doctors recorded his emotions as well, wondering what would happen to the Prince when he came back to reality. Even damaged, his blood was quite pure, and many of the Royalists wanted to keep pure breds in rule instead of the capitalist gains that created class instability.

They snorted. Like the Royalist Families would be in control much longer. Times were changing, and killing off the entire revolutionary chain of thought would not stop it. Although some people had tried to kill Finn before.

* * *

Aerrow and Finn slept in the same room. They couldn't take the quiet groans of the Condor settling, and needed someone there to show that the ship wasn't empty. Junko would come and go, sometimes even going off the Condor to find more supplies. It wasn't the dead of night, when anything could sneak up on them, after all.

It was late afternoon. When the sun went down, they would take off and keep moving, as most air creatures used sonar to move around, and wouldn't mess with something that was big and moving.

Creatures on the ground had eyesight just fine in the dark. They would keep moving until noon, and then find another place to rest and record their travels.

Stork would have made a comment about fighting 'irreversible Far Side insanity to make those maps' but he wasn't there anymore to help them.

No.

They had only themselves to live out in adventure and peril in this strange world.

* * *

Jay and Lark exited the meeting. The company had already recovered from the crash, and the hacker was still out there, but that was what the press reported.

Lark handed order for the prisoner's treatment to a coded Talon who would see to it that the one responsible for nearly the deaths of three hundred people would receive no new blankets and would be beaten severely.

Lark didn't like business partners that thought they could endanger her family and friends and get away with it.

She could still hear Aerrow telling Radarr, "It's okay, I saw this in a Cartoon once!" before Ravess was sent to the restart menu. They had laughed at how into the game everyone was getting, congratulating themselves on how the jump start put everyone into a new arc of the game.

And then the hacker had made a new arc by creating the second world, the Far Side, the Shadow World that infected the game and nearly destroyed the humans playing.

They would find a way to rescue the three boys. They would be a family again. Sure, they were doomed to a painful suffering, especially if the boys chose to believe that Atmosia was real, and that the pods transported them to this hallucination. But Lark remembered designing the game.

This was reality. Her grandmother had visited her and teased the survivors about doubting reality's existence. Then she frowned about the crash, and hinted about who stood to gain from such a calamity.

Lark loved her psychotic grandmother. There was a reason she was the Empress of Cyclonia in the game. She was crazy enough to take on the world.

She was also crazy enough to convince people to care for this reality again.

They entered the room again. The layout was a main room with one hallway connecting it to the corporation she owned. Then there was the silent pass into the room where the three boys and the central pod was. Off to the left was the room for the additional pods, and to the right was where Rav- Charlotte stayed. Her half-brother Charlie couldn't stand her depression, having been disabled himself and confined to a wheel chair as a child, and fought constantly to get his self-confident sister back.

He still believed that she could find a way. Either out of the game or her own mind and the funk that by turns made her crazy or docile, no one really knew.

* * *

Junko came back from his trip. Apparently, Wallops are very scary, and are best left alone. He reported signs of a camp. Alarmed, and hopeful that it was someone they knew, Finn and Aerrow set the Condor with traps and followed him.

They found Domowick. That had been a pleasant find. Not.

Domowick informed them that by now, Piper, Stork and Radarr were probably dead, or had teamed up with Cyclonis and Dark Ace to survive. It wasn't actually stretching the truth, but Aerrow, Finn, and Junko thought that Cyclonis and Dark Ace were dead.

Well, so much for that transition tactic. Instead, he quizzed them on their childhood. It was just as the game assigned them for their background, taking in some clues and molding it off the real events, or paralleling them in this world. Junko, however, was shifty.

He started to move like he didn't really fit in his skin. Domowick concentrated his efforts on the three boys. He traveled with them, frightened to awaken in the pod and leave them thinking that something strange was going on.

Their brains couldn't handle the extra stress.

Finally, Junko just woke up in reality one day. He spoke to all of them, and then returned to the Condor.

* * *

Junko had fallen asleep on the bridge. Domowick volunteered to watch for him, so Finn and Aerrow headed off to sleep. At the doctor's prompting, he pinched Junko. Hard.

In reality, Crow watched his character get pinched and react not a bit to it. He then pinched himself, and then nodded. His brain was still adjusting. The others, Lark, Jay, Starling, Piper, Stork, Robin, and Charlie were glad to see him awake and recognizing them.

He ate with them, but only a mouthful. His body was used to intravenous injections for food after a long time. They told him about how difficult it would be to extract Finn and Aerrow. How they were still alive because their characters continued to move and interact. Then Crow steeled himself, and left a message for himself in a sealed letter and went back under.

* * *

"Huh? Oh, morning Aussie."

Domowick gave him a wry smile and then glared at him. "Careful there, bug fellow. Wouldn't want to hurt yourself."

Junko nodded, then settled into his larger form. They talked quietly for a while, and then planned to run into Master Cyclonis and company in the next few Terras. Perhaps they could all get killed for real this time.

To go back to reality.

Finn and Aerrow arrived after they had finished, yawning and ready to fall asleep again. They couldn't handle the stress and welcomed the thought of uninhabited Terras for a few days of rest and relaxation.

But how to convince Finn and Aerrow that it was a game? They couldn't just murder Finn and Aerrow- the shock actually would kill them. They had to see the menu re-start page. They had to die without seeing what hit them.

And so the planning and the countdown began.

A/N: I have no idea where this came from. No worries! No curveballs like that in any other stories! But that…..geez. I must be really stressed to think that this is normal. My writing flow is all over the place. Please review and tell me what you thought, most likely the next chapter is the last chapter! The rescue of Finn and Aerrow, and finding out who Dark Ace (Jay) is crushing on!


End file.
